Childhood and Children's Books in Early Modern Europe, 1550-1800 / Edition 1

by Andrea Immel, Michael Witmore

Overview

This volume of 14 original essays by historians and literary scholars explores childhood and children's books in Early Modern Europe, 1550-1800. The collection aims to reposition childhood as a compelling presence in early modern imagination—a ready emblem of innocence, mischief, and playfulness. The essays offer a wide-ranging basis for reconceptualizing the development of a separate literature for children as central to evolving early modern concepts of human development and socialization. Among the topics covered are constructs of literacy as revealed by the figure of Goody Two Shoes, notions of pedagogy and academic standards, a reception study of children's reading based on book purchases made by Rugby school boys in the late eighteenth-century, an analysis of the first international best-seller for children, the abbe Pluche's Spectacle de la nature, and the commodification of child performers in Jacobean comedies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415972581
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	12/20/2005
Series:	Children's Literature and Culture , #38
Pages:	350
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Andrea Immel, Michael Witmore

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction Andrea Immel and Michael Witmore Little Differences: Children, Their Culture and Books in the Study of Early Modern Europe Chapter 2 Erica Fudge Learning to Laugh: Children and Being Human in Early Modern Thought Chapter 3 Michael Witmore 'Oh that I Had Her:' Experimental Knowledge and the Voice of the Possessed Child Chapter 4 Marianne Novy Adopted Children in Shakespeare's Romance and Construction of Heredity, Nurture, and Parenthood Chapter 5 Claire M. Busse 'Pretty Fictions' and 'Little Stories:' Child Actors on the Early Modern Stage Chapter 6 Michael Mascuch A Child Minister's 'Power in the Word:' The Apparition of Sarah Wight Chapter 7 Kristina Straub 'In the Posture of Children:' Eighteenth-Century British Servants and Children Chapter 8 Cynthia Koepp Curiosity, Science and Experiential Learning in the Eighteenth Century: Reading the Spectacle de la nature Chapter 9 Jill Shefrin 'Governesses to Their Children:' Royal and Aristocratic Mothers Educating Daughters in the Reign of George III Chapter 10 Patricia Crain Spectral Literacy: The Case of Goody Two-Shoes Chapter 11 Jan Fergus Solace in Books: Reading Trifling Adventures at Rugby School Chapter 12 William McCarthy Performance, Pedagogy, and Politics: Mrs. Thrale, Mrs. Barbauld, M. Itard Chapter 13 Arianne Baggerman and Rudolf Dekker Otto's Watch: Enlightenment, Virtue and Time in the Eighteenth Century Chapter 14 Jürgen Schlumbohm The School of Life: Reflections on Socialization in Pre-Industrial Germany